You get to sit with a friend (most often while your hubby babysits your children). You're almost always the only book for sale there, making you in competition with no one. You get invited into people's homes. You get to experience all kinds of weather (okay, this one may be a con, but remember, you [...]
With the arrival of 2017 comes the year I hope to publish Book #3! As I talked with my designer and illustrator about future projects, we all felt like one more alphabet book made sense, something to "complete" the series before venturing into another genre. This doesn't mean I'll never write about the ABCs again but [...]
Quite a bit can happen in one short little year Your alma mater magazine may place your picture here Your family may support you And little helpers cheer And that's not all that happened In my 2016 year Many schools made welcome To hear me share my book Son Corban clicked through PowerPoint And we found [...]
This past Saturday, the Otsego District Library hosted a Monster Bash in honor of The Monsterbet. We were able to use all of our leftover supplies from our monster party at the Warsaw Community Public Library, which made it an incredibly affordable event. Eighty-nine people were in attendance, and we sold another great stack of books. [...]
Last Saturday, we threw the party of our lives to officially launch our second book, The Monsterbet! We had coloring pages (<---they're free on our website), drawing prompts, a mix and match monster felt wall, monster puppets and pencils, build-a-monster creations, bookmarks, snacks, tattoos, and the rockingest photo booth our town has ever seen. I'll take some [...]
If you've been around here long, you know that I consider my books an extension of my family--my babies, if you will. And there's nothing more disappointing than for nobody to know about your new baby. When I published my first book and had that first copy in my hands, people started asking where they [...]
Self-published authors are often not taken seriously, and I believe there is one main reason this is true. It's not for the quality of the writing. Not for the creativity of the ideas. Not even for not having a traditional publisher. It's all about the design. When your book doesn't look professional, it won't be taken [...]
I've shared a little about our publishing choices in previous posts, but today, I wanted to get more specific about the printing choices we've made. For your reference, we printed The Shoephabet with Blurb as a 60-page, 6x9" softcover trade book with economy color printing. With IngramSpark, we printed The Monsterbet as a 48-page, 6x9" soft and hardcover [...]
A few days ago, I shared the story of our first book, The Shoephabet. As promised, I'd like to now share our journey with our second book, The Monsterbet. When our first-born book was yet a baby, a good friend and fellow Grace alum Daniel Manduka (<---check out his website; can't wait to tap into even more of [...]
Many people have asked. (And many is an understatement.) Where did we get the idea for alphabet books? Why did we choose to self-publish? What company did we use? How did we go about making a book? And more. This post is a beginning of this conversation, though I'm sure there will be more to [...]